Praying for the death

[Dad Ernie]

Greetings & Welcome Jacqueline,

For as long as I can remeber when I pass a grave yard I would say a little prayer. "God please forgive them for their sins and embrace their soul's if it's your will in Jesus name I pray." I'm Thirty-Three years old and I'm still doing this. I guess I still do it because I would want someone to pray for me. My question is do praying for the dead help them in any way?

Have you studied the whole Bible? I mean REALLY studied it, as if you were going to be given an exam on it at the end of your life? Jesus once said: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." We are also told to "Study to show yourselves approved, a workman unto God, rightly dividing the Word of truth." Are you familiar with those verses Jacqueline? Do you take them to heart?

I have to ask this, because we no longer live according to the flesh, but "according to the Spirit" if we are Christ's. It is the Holy Spirit's job to "recall to our minds" the Words we are taught by Jesus Christ/God.

In response to your question, we are given:

Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

There are actually two judgments at the end of our life, one for the believer (the Bema Seat Judgment), and one for the unbeliever (the Great White Throne Judment). When we step out of this "space/time continium", we step into "eternity" where the Judgment Seat awaits every person. Whose courtroom you end up in is determined by whether "in this Life" you have rejected Christ or accepted Him.

Blessings,

Dad Ernie

[mobile21]

For as long as I can remeber when I pass a grave yard I would say a little prayer. "God please forgive them for their sins and embrace their soul's if it's your will in Jesus name I pray." I'm Thirty-Three years old and I'm still doing this. I guess I still do it because I would want someone to pray for me. My question is do praying for the dead help them in any way?

Since you can't know what happened to those ppl, you should pray for them. If they made it to Heaven then your prayers won't hurt.

[nicholas]

2Mach

43 And making a gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection.

44 (For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead,)

45 And because he considered that they who had fallen asleep with godliness, had great grace laid up for them.

46 It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.

[nicholas]

Please add my question to yours. What is this verse talking about?

1 Cor 15:29

29 Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?

(KJV)

Some think the apostle here alludes to a ceremony then in use;but others, more probably, to prayers and penitential labours, preformed by the primative Christians for the souls of the faithfully departed; or to the babtism of afflictions and sufferings undergo for sinners spiritually dead.

[jesusson]

Prayers on behalf of the dead have no meaning, for nothing can be changed by them. God's Word shows that the dead no longer have any physical or mental activity (Psalm 146:4; Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10). Each person who dies sleeps in his grave in unconsciousness until the resurrection (John 5:28-29; Daniel 12:2; Job 19:25-26; 14:12-14; John 3:13; Acts 2:29, 34). Clearly, prayers should be for the living while there is still hope of repentance, not for the dead, who can do nothing.